Tallahassee, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the Tampa area added 26,700 new private-sector jobs in the last year, creating the second-highest number of jobs among all Florida metro areas. Tampa’s unemployment rate was 3.2 percent, down 0.2 percentage point from one year ago. Statewide, Florida businesses created 241,000 new private-sector jobs in December 2018.

To see the statewide job creation information, click here.

The industry with the highest growth over the year in the Tampa area was leisure and hospitality with 7,800 new jobs.

The Tampa area remained first among the state metro areas in job demand in December with 52,790 openings. The Tampa area also continues to rank first in the state in demand for high-skill, high-wage STEM occupations with 17,596 openings in December 2018.

Florida’s unemployment rate of 3.3 percent represents a drop of 0.6 percentage point over the year. This is while 140,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.4 percent in the past year. Florida’s annual job growth rate of 3.2 percent continues to exceed the nation’s rate of 2.0 percent.

To view the December 2018 employment data, visit www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.

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